


sure, you could arrest the coating mechanic, but he'll be gone of his own accord anyways

by grainjew



Series: there we were, the three of us (threads of crimson, silver, and gold) [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: F/M, Multi, Rayleigh Is A Sad Old Man Leave Him Alone, as always with these fics theres so little actual romance it could very well be gen, luffy voice tell me a story so i can stop listening to it immediately, what the fuck is romance anyways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 23:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16207697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Luffy wants to know about Ace’s mom. Rayleigh obliges.“Rouge, huh?” said Rayleigh, lingering on the shapes it made in his mouth. That was a name he hadn’t said sober for a good few years now. “Portgas D Rouge…”Luffy nodded, looking very self-satisfied. His face was splashed faintly red by the glow of the embers. “Since it’s not about the Pirate King, it’s not cheating! And Ace always thought she was thecoolest.”





	sure, you could arrest the coating mechanic, but he'll be gone of his own accord anyways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingwish/gifts).



> jazzhands heres the last part of the colors trio trifecta! im super fond of these three but as of this fic (and until i accidentally end up writing another one) this series is complete!
> 
> rouge.... is good. hey dark oda show me the forbidden rouge content.

"Raaaayleigh," said Luffy. He had exhausted the copious dinner and was now lying on his back, staring up at the sky and fiddling with the ripped seams of his shirt. " _Rayleigh_ , tell me a story!"

Rayleigh muffled a groan. _Roger_ had never tried to beg a bedtime story off his Vice-Captain.

“But _Ray_ leigh,” insisted Luffy, once he had realized the groan was the only response he was going to get.

“Fine,” sighed Rayleigh. The subject matter might be unknown territory, but that tone of voice struck at something familiar in him, some memory of Roger’s childish stubbornness, and the fire was dwindling to ashes in front of him to leave him cold, and suddenly Rayleigh felt sentimental enough to agree. “What kind of story do you want?”

Luffy flipped himself over to lie on his chest, pillowing his chin in his hands. He made a thinking noise, _hmmmmm_ , and his forehead scrunched between his eyes. “Oh! I know! Hey, Rayleigh, tell me about Ace’s,” his face dimmed to familiar blankness for just a second and then woke back to buoyancy, “about Ace’s mom! I wanna hear a story about her!”

“Rouge, huh?” said Rayleigh, lingering on the shapes it made in his mouth. That was a name he hadn’t said sober for a good few years now. “Portgas D Rouge…”

Luffy nodded, looking very self-satisfied. His face was splashed faintly red by the glow of the embers. “Since it’s not about the Pirate King, it’s not cheating! And Ace always thought she was the _coolest_.”

“Well, alright,” said Rayleigh. He sent his memory back, trying to pick some event out with minimal appearances by his Captain, out of respect for Luffy’s integrity. "She was a hell of a woman, Rouge," he added, and then sighed. "A terror in a fight, and terrible company out of one. Well, I'm exaggerating."

Luffy shifted positions again, making himself comfortable and putting on his rarely-seen listening face.

"Now, this was back when East Blue wasn't nearly as tame as it is today,” began Rayleigh, once he had settled on a story. Buggy had been the Oro Jackson’s taleteller, and Rayleigh had had to sit and listen to enough of his monologues to remember to set the scene first, even twenty years later.

“After Roger's execution, when they were hunting down Rouge and the Pirate Era was just getting started, the Navy swept through the place with a fine-tooth comb and washed the seas in blood to stem the tide of piracy, or try at any rate. I haven't been back since, but I hear it's abnormally quiet now." Rayleigh grinned in a way that he was told came off as sly, eyeing the coiled potential of Roger’s chosen heir. "Perfect place to birth a Supernova, if you ask me." Perfect place to birth both Pirate Kings, he hoped, or maybe just vowed.

He blinked, to ward off images of twenty years past and two years future. “This is decades before that, though, and back then the East was as wild as the other Blues, or maybe even more. That was the sea we built ourselves on, gained our infamy and gathered our ambition.

“Now, there's something you need to understand about Rouge, too. She joined before me, right out of Loguetown with Roger — that's a fact you won't hear tell of in the history books — and she staked out a good portion of the deck to grow her flowers on, kind of like some of your crew’ve got going on that _Thousand Sunny_ of yours. She was a florist, born and raised, and even decades later she treasured those flowers like nothing else.”

He remembered her, suddenly, her face twisted in what he only later realized was grief, threatening his life over the fate of her sunflowers as she left the crew to stay away from the Grand Line, remembered Buggy crying afterwards in their broken shade, three uprooted stalks in his lap and betrayal across his face. Rouge had always been Buggy's favorite. It was really no wonder he’d spent the past twenty years laying low in East Blue, keeping himself safe. Fumblingly, through a haze of childhood grief, he had just been trying to imitate Rouge.

Rayleigh shook himself out of his memories as a growl echoed in the distance. Ahh, Ruskaina.

Luffy was still lying on his stomach, head on his arms in front of him, and with the brim of that hat shadowing his face it was impossible to tell if he was still paying attention. Rayleigh would put it about 50/50 odds, 40/60 if he was feeling cynical.

...maybe 30/70, at that.

But regardless of his audience, he had a story to tell, and he took his duties seriously.

“So, one day, about fourty or so years ago, we were fighting some other crew on the open sea — I can't remember their name, although I _can_ tell you they don't exist anymore — and some of them managed to get on board… and in the doing trample Rouge's azaleas.

“She was _furious._

“You should have seen her down those pirates; it was over faster than the rest of us could blink, even Roger, and then she got to the other ship somehow and did the rest of them in for good measure.”

Rayleigh poked idly at the embers of their fire with a stick, sending up a spray of sparks, watched them fade as he spoke.

"She was like a hurricane, in those moments. A tornado or a whirlpool in a way that drew the eye and made you stare. And that hair she had, all the pounds of it the color of watered-down blood whipping around her as she forced her way through... That brother of yours got her freckles, alright, but it’s a damn pity he got Roger's hair.”

He poked the embers again, to see them blink at him, and sighed. “I saw impressive, terrifying, awe-inspiring things when we travelled the Grand Line, but only Roger doing the same ever matched the sight of Rouge defending her own, for all she never even stepped foot in Paradise.” Some creature squaked, half the island away, and Rayleigh smiled. “‘Course, you really had to push her to get past the way she tried to be the sensible one. A D, sensible? Ha, she was as reckless as the Captain.

"Her whole sensibleness complex was why she didn't come with us to the Grand Line, you know, for all she would have been a _terror_ in the New World. Stayed behind in East Blue instead and became some town’s mayor. A town named after a flower, no less. That woman never did anything by halves.”

Luffy shifted a little, that hat tipping a little further over his face as the last of the emberlight cast red dawn onto his body. Rayleigh was already so fond of him, of this child of D who dared to defy the gods themselves.

Rouge had been a D, same as Roger, born to upend the world — or someone's world at least. And Rayleigh could very well consider his world upended by the both of them, from the day Roger made that offer and dragged him off to meet his first crewmate without waiting for an answer.

From the three of them against the shining waters of East Blue, and then the two of them against the mysteries of the Grand Line, and then him, alone, against what was left behind.

Roger said he would never die; Rouge made no such promise. The two of them threw their legacies to the wind and left Rayleigh to catch them, scrambling, left him to spark the ashes of the two whirlwinds he loved more than life itself, the two whirlwinds he would keep living for.

Ace was dead before Rayleigh could put the pieces together to try to save him, dead and leaving behind only the ache of another grief soaking into Rayleigh’s bones with the knowledge that that could have been his son too, _the three of us together could have raised a son_ , leaving behind Luffy, another child just a step away from being family, Roger's heir slight and wavering with his own shade of grief, a color bright and stark and fresh where Rayleigh's was heavy with familiarity.

But looking at Luffy, indubitably asleep now and younger in unconsciousness than he ever looked awake, so small and so fitting for the mantle he lived into, Rayleigh could not find any resentment to spare for his dead.

He threw some twigs onto the ashes and fanned them into flames.


End file.
